The sound of music

Have you ever paused and recognized that if you hadn't found or come upon a specific person, place or thing in your life, that your personality and maybe your entire existence might be different?

Well, I feel that way about superheroes (comics) music/songs/singer-songwriters, etc.

Have you ever heard of the term Lisztomania?
The translation is "the need to listen to music all the time". Or the term Musicomania? The translation is "a condition where a person's passion for music (or a song) becomes so strong, it prevents them from functioning".

Those definitions describe my relationship with music.

For example: If you think I'm going to spend my day listening to this song or that song on repeat until I memorize ALL the lyrics, background noises, the drums, the beats, the harmonies, etc. Trying to do them all, then you're correct.

Oh! You're listening to sad songs in a hot, steamy shower? Move over, I'm getting in. Oh, you know how it goes. Listening to the same sad song on replay, you know, just to make SURE it does enough damage. (I'm being serious but also tongue in cheek)

For me, I realize it may sound weird, and I don't know why this is, but melancholy music makes me happy. Maybe because often sadness can be hope-filled/a first step to hopefulness/healing, and it's comforting knowing you aren't alone in your feelings, OR maybe I'm just a masochist? You decide.


One of the greatest parts about life, hands down, is just sitting on the shower floor with the lights off with warm water hitting you as you take the sad music in. Ugh. One of the loveliest parts of living. Almost nothing compares.

Music was my first love. I love music because it's the only thing that hasn't walked aside from me when I needed it most. We're all addicted to something that takes the pain away, right? I don't know what I would do without music.


Taylor Swift is one of the best songwriters to have ever lived.

The path she has charted for women, the tone she writes songs to respond to critics, the media, the public, politics, social justice, LGBTQ rights, the slut-shaming, the underestimating women, being outspoken about writers owning their words, love, loss, new beginnings, the questioning of her success, etc.

Taylor Swift isn't just a celebrity, and her songs aren't just songs. Her music speaks to us about the struggle to stay hopeful after a catastrophe, about believing in something bigger than one's self, and that something better is always possible.

Music is my definition of inspiration and strength. Music is my hero, and it helps me get through each day. I owe music a lot. Songwriters write about reality, and that alone makes music so great. Music takes my pain and turns it into hope for me. Words are mighty. Music knows how to lift you and tear you down all at once.

Music touches my soul. It's my peace when my world is falling apart, It's a hug when I need comfort, It catches my tears when I'm sad, It helps me breathe when I'm mad, It sets the mood for romance, It makes sex more extraordinary, It inspires me when I'm hopeless.

Music is a time capsule and the gateway to all of my memories.

Music is the key to the most profound emotions that I've experienced throughout my entire life.

Many individuals don't tune in to music for lyrics, many people listen to music for the sound but for me, I've always been a very lyrical, wordy person.

This is why after the hell it's been because of the global pandemic I about fainted when I discovered so many songwriters experienced an awakening of sorts in the amount of writing they were doing because I've been in dire need of some emotional mental and spiritual rejuvenation and that's what music does for me.

I've felt like I've been drowning and hearing that put me on Cloud 9 and released so much tension. For me, music has always been a pleasure, a protector, and my passion.

The words give me strength, courage, inspiration, and motivation to continue going, to enjoy living, and to go on believing something better is right around the corner.

Music gives me hope when I'm hopeless, and love when I've felt unloved.

Music has given me a reason to embrace life when I've felt I was dying inside.

Before Hilary Duff, Simple plan, and Taylor Swift I never knew listening to a song could move me, and when I saw that for the first time when I was 11-18 going into high school dealing with major depression I felt I was alive for a reason.

Music provided me and provides me with an escape and a break from my world.

Music has changed my way of life, saved my spirit, and has had a tremendous impact on me as an individual.

Music says everything my soul is screaming from within, it's like it knows my heart, brain, and my essence.

Music covers romance, love, parent-child relationships, friendships, alienation, public opinion, career ambitions, and the list goes on and on and on.

It's like certain music was made just for me and every time I listen to music I take something new from it or when I'm in particular moods a specific verse or the entire song will align with what I am feeling at that moment even though it might be a song about something and different from the issue I am having or the mood I am in yet, I can connect the tune to any scene in my life, any emotion, any problem, etc.

I can find a positive message in any song and connect it to the current situation I'm in, no matter what it is.

Have you ever found a song that saved you? When you're or when you were dealing with loss, with pain, and then you hear this certain song or this certain album and it blows your soul wide open. It becomes an anthem for your story, part of the fabric of your being, your presence, and now you can't imagine living without that song or that album and you're SO grateful the song or the album came into existence.


And If you ever feel sad, you just remember the world is 4.5 billion years old, and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as those specific songs and the songwriters who wrote them and that thought can rescue you.

Music is hope, pure hope. It's remarkable what a song can do. It is something special. That feeling when an album sounds like the ancient books in a forgotten library that started singing their stories out loud to you because you can't come to take them home anymore, and it gives you a reason to breathe, an escape from this cruel world filled with thieves.

Every time you listen to the music it always seems like the first gift you open on Christmas, or it always feels like a hug from a loved one, or it feels like all you've ever wanted, all you've ever needed. It becomes art on a canvas in your mind's eye you can't stop staring at for eternity.


People haven't consistently been there for me, but music always has.

I'll end with this quote from Anime: ANGEL BEATS!

"I heard that when things were painful for her, she'd cover her ears with headphones and escape to the world of music. I tried it too. It was like everything was blown away. The vocals screamed for me. They grieved for me. The ones who put on the act of common sense were wrong. Those who cried were right. We, the lonely were more human. They screamed at the absurd, beat it down, and destroyed it. They saved me."